My Mom Cut the Cord! Switched from Comcast / Xfinity to Frontier / YouTube TV
HTML-код
- Опубликовано: 19 июн 2024
- See more in this series: lon.tv/comcastcut - In the series finale to my series on auditing my Mom's cable bill, we've decided to make the switch away from Comcast/Xfinity. She saved a pretty decent amount of money by switching to Frontier fiber optic paired up with RUclips TV. Subscribe for more! lon.tv/s
See my Frontier Review here: lon.tv/frontier
VIDEO INDEX:
00:00 - Intro
01:03 - Frontier Offering
01:27 - Bill Breakdown
02:57 - Comcast Price
04:29 - Frontier Ordering Issues
06:03 - Service Quality
07:25 - ONT & Router
09:12 - Conclusion
Visit my Blog! blog.lon.tv
Subscribe to my email lists!
Weekly Breakdown of Posted Videos: - lon.tv/email
Daily Email From My Blog Posts! lon.tv/digest
See my second channel for supplementary content : lon.tv/extras
Follow me on Amazon too! lon.tv/amazonshop
Join the Facebook group to connect with me and other viewers!
lon.tv/facebookgroup
Visit the Lon.TV store to purchase some of my previously reviewed items! lon.tv/store
Read more about my transparency and disclaimers: lon.tv/disclosures
Want to chat with other fans of the channel? Visit our Facebook Group! lon.tv/facebookgroup, our Discord: lon.tv/discord and our Telegram channel at lon.tv/telegram !
Want to help the channel? Start a Member subscription or give a one time tip!
lon.tv/support
or contribute via Venmo!
lon@lon.tv
Follow me on Facebook!
/ lonreviewstech
Follow me on Twitter!
/ lonseidman
Catch my longer interviews and wrap-ups in audio form on my podcast!
lon.tv/itunes
lon.tv/stitcher
or the feed at lon.tv/podcast/feed.xml
We are a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for us to earn fees by linking to Amazon.com and affiliated sites. 
Наука
Competition is always a good thing in any market and I hope Frontier improves their customer service. I also hope that you and your whole family stay safe in the crazy wildfire smoke that you’re getting!
This is Lon’s way of gently telling us he finally moves out of his mom’s house. Good for you, Lon.
I love competition! It keeps ISPs honest. The added benefit is promo hopping. If you have both fiber and cable available, you can switch between them when their respective promo deal runs out. 5G FWA also helps in this if fiber is not available. Now, it is a bit of a chore if you have users accustomed to old cable TV. Like you mentioned, there is an abundance of streaming content available. It just takes a bit of a learning curve to abandon old school TV channel surfing.
I am finally moving out of an area with a Comcast monopoly. So glad to tell them where they can stick their bill.
I just did the exact same thing here in Norfolk, CT and I can attest to basically everything you report. I had the same issue with the porting of the phone number, but I decided to just get the new number. I'm saving $110 per month having gotten rid of Xfinity/Comcast.
Keep this series going. Love this content.
Lon, I have a second home mountain house in NC (Near Asheville) I had HughesNet Satellite (very slow), over a year ago I got StarLink. (worked great, but I couldn't get high enough to not have blockages over trees) and now I have 1gb fiber to my house! I have better internet there than at my main residence!
Keep up the great work
It’s always interesting to me how ISPs pick and choose their states and municipalities that they operate in. I’m in Rhode Island and all we have is Cox and Verizon Fios and those still don’t penetrate 100% of the state. We also still don’t have a multi gig option although Cox is rolling out multi gig service that’s supposed to launch this year. I wonder if Frontier ever considered coming up a bit further north to Rhode Island.
Frontier is not the ILEC phone company in Rode Island, Verizon is. They would have to overbuild fiber there.
Thanks so much for the update. I'm in CT with my mom. She has Dish Network and Frontier DSL (painfully slow 5Mb/s download). Her Dish network 2-year contract is almost over, so I've been considering other options after contract expires. I was actually considering dropping her DSL, and getting Xfinity just for internet, since there is a promo $25/month for 2 years. But Frontier just installed fiber in the neighborhood, so fiber could be up and running soon. The package you got your mom looks interesting!
Get the Frontier. It's a better option. After the Comcast promo price ends, the bill would increase by at least 3X. That's not even taking into account Xfinity's equipment rental fees and installation fees.
@@theatremusician thanks for your reply. yeah. I'm thinking that. I was thinking, after the Xfinity 2 year promo is over, I would switch her again to whatever the better option is at that time. But Right now, Mom is paying $51.98 for Frontier "broadband MAX" (which is 5 Mbs or less). That is insane. She also has Digital Phone Unlimited, which is $34.99/month. At first, I thought her Frontier bill had inverted the charges, and her DSL was $34.99/month, but no, I was told the DSL is, in fact, $51.98 for painfully slow DSL. The Frontier representative told me the DSL prices are currently "frozen", and they can't do anything about pricing because fiber service is imminent.
Great deal. I live in huge city and have fewer options.
just got my AT&T fiber fixed today, was capped at 500 for some odd reason, some damage to the line. now up to 2400 symmetric at the router. impressive. using QNAP routers.
There is so much free stuff out there to stream for sure, but the problem is a lot of the content overlaps on different services, so when you set up her Roku make sure you don't put apps on there that have the same content twice, or are just a confusing mess to use, make sure they have old school style channel guides like cable, that's how I got my mother use them more on her Chromecast.
Also when installing an Antenna for her make sure to include a 4G LTE/5G line filter(Silicon Dust makes one of the best ones) as that can help clear up reception as T-Mobile bought some of the UHF band for their 5G network that can interfere with some channels if you are near enough to one of their towers, or if you have one of their 5G gateways in your home for their internet service.
I ended up moving my parents landline to US Mobile with their unlimited talk and text plan. I then put the sim into a LTE Verizon Wireless Home Phone adapter that I found at goodwill for $3. They even support custom caller id if you message support! It's also less of a nightmare to deal with their support when something goes wrong. US Mobile was verry helpful when Xfinity didn't want to port out the number. Worth just checking out.
1:46 That is the same exact amount for the monthly service charge I just sign up for here in SF Bay area, they will come out and install it this Saturday, Aug 12th, I cannot wait to see how well it works, this is to replace my old Frontier DSL. I told them I need to be able to use my old land line so I'm curious to know how that will work and what will happen if I want to get better router and still be able to keep the phone working.
We had frontier and it wasn’t getting no more than 1.48mb it was over $120 for that and phone, and they didn’t even have fiber optic here. It was awful had them for YEARS..
the real breaking point was when our internet & phone went out for 2 MONTHS. Sometimes it would come on for a few minutes but be out in about 30mins every time. When it would rain you could hear it when you cut the phone on.
Workers told us there was a pole down the street, that’s been laying down and they wouldn’t fix it for years, they would always file it for repair do to disaster. They never fixed it, we called them told them about the service came out and they tried to fix it but I think it just fixed the phone for awhile and the internet messed up about later that day. Worst service I’ve ever experienced. Hopefully they have fixed all their problems for everyone else that has them now , wish we could have gotten good service with them. I have heard people getting good speeds now. Now back around 2010 etc they was pretty good I believe the speed was even faster lol, the pole was probably standing up then😅.
Always enjoy your videos! Hope all is well!😁
I did this a couple of years ago. I switched to Verizon FIOS internet only and got RUclips TV and a Obihai box for home phone service. Of course RUclips TV was a lot cheaper back then. Though even today my setup is still cheaper for me than going back to cable.
Always great to see actual reliable fiber internet as an option
I don't know if prices vary by state, but I'm getting 1g internet for $66/mo and applied for the FCC bandpass rebate that brought it to $30/mo. look into it.
Lon, luv your vids. How about Ooma,
Does Frontier supply a UPS for the ONT since it is also supplying phone capability for your mom? With regular phone lines if the power goes out the phone still works.
Unfortunately most places dont have ANY competition. The only hope you have is to slim down to internet along with a simple streaming service to save money.
That is why RUclips TV supposed to be a streaming service not some fancy-schmancy deal we have to pay a lot of money for that. However if people want to go ahead and pay the $85 a month for RUclips TV on their phone or laptop then good that would be the only way to go!
The speedtest server on synology looks very cool, does anyone have a link on how to install this on synology?
I would love to see a video on the remote NAS setup at your mothers house.
Mr. Lon, she maybe available for the affordable connectivity program (ACP). I've got my dad on it an it decreases his internet/phone bill by $30 a month. Just a thought & suggestion to help her save more!!
A couple of months ago, Comcast emailed me saying I can get a faster speed. I text chatted with them and I got a faster speed and about 25 bucks less than what I have been paying. I knew something was up, and this week I saw workers putting in fiber in the neighborhood for Brightspeed. Ah yes, thank goodness for competition.
I am surprised, with your tech knowledge, you haven’t switched your mom’s phone number to OOMA. I switched my mother over to OOMA 2 years ago. Beautiful thing is it’s reverse tech so my mom has no idea she’s using it as all pre-existing phones in the house work.
Also good luck with Frontier, I just switched my mom from frontier to xfinity after months of customer service nightmares!
My sister lives in New London, CT. She can get Frontier Fiber, Breezline and Comcast. Comcast overbuilt Breezeline. She has an older Breezline cable internet package currently. I am going to recommend a switch to Frontier Fiber. My hometown of Ledyard, CT has just recently gotten Frontier Fiber. I am stuck with Spectrum cable internet in my condo in Bradenton, FL. Frontier is less than a half mile away, but these condo buildings are not wired for fiber. I do have Verizon 5G home internet for a backup connection. My cable internet is 500/20 and the Verizon 5G is 300/20. What I want is faster upload. I am waiting for high split upgrades to happen with Spectrum.
Comcast has a monopoly here in Baltimore.
Frontier is now offering 200/200 speed for $29.99, which seems like a great deal.
I cut xfinity cable as well and only using wifi now only saving $90 dollars a month
What Chromebook is your mother using. my grandmother's Chromebook has reached end of life and I need an affordable replacementm
She’s using a Lenovo, seems to work fine. The support length is longer now so a new one is good for 8 years
Any thoughts about going with Ooma or another VoIP? I fed the output from my Ooma box to a telephone wall socket. Since the wiring is all parallel on phone lines, all the old POTS phones in the house work just fine. Of course, you can port the existing phone number to your Ooma account. This would be far less than $25/month for POTS. And, the quality is excellent. Just an idea!
Their voice price seems high, I only pay $12 a month for voice over Comcast. Ooma would not save me much if anything if you want to keep your existing number.
@@jaycahow4667 There is a baseline Ooma that costs whatever the taxes are for your area. I think I pay $10/month plus taxes for the "Premier" service but you get 2 numbers, voicemail, all the calling features, and an app for your cellphone, plus free unlimited North American calling. I switched to VoIP as soon as Vonage arrived. I never looked back. I will say I have all my communications equipment on a large UPS so in the event of a power failure, I am pretty much covered.
@@cggage I just switched to Ooma residential (free) service, porting my landline number from xfinity. It has worked for a week. Next, I will call xfinity to cancel the phone portion of our "triple play" bundle. I will probably cancel the broadcast TV portion also, and rely on just a Roku mix. If xfinity can't or won't sell me only internet, then we just got Fidium here as a competitor.
You are a good son. I think you mom will be fine after a month or so. I was able to convert my wife from her Comcast habit to YTTV with minimal difficulty. You save your mother $1,000s
I dropped Cox cable at the end of January. Frontier had an offer for 1 gig fiber plus RUclips TV with discounts. There was also a $200. Visa gift card after three consecutive monthly payments. I never got the card. Not even an email. So I went online and typed with a bot, and they said they would have to re-submit my order, and now I have to wait until August. Then I got an email saying that the "changes" I requested went through, and I will be getting a $150. MasterCard?! Well I am a little miffed, but I still am saving about $130. a month over Cox.
Update: Shortly after I left this comment, I got the $200. Visa card in the mail. Better late than never.
Lon same thing happened with me and frontier just keep up and make sure they don’t charge her.
We figured out that my mother in law is only watching a couple of channels, which are available over the air, and I will be connecting an outdoor antenna to her cable line and will eliminate cable. My sister in law lives upstairs and we will extend her internet to my mother in law’s Alexa devices. Comcast doesn’t go out of their way to lower rates for seniors.
Phone line over fiber optic is interesting, but $25 monthly makes me doubt. My mom didn't get used to Netflix nor Paramount, she prefers Pluto tv, maybe because it's easier to use.
Get your mom a Samsung Smart tv. They have free channels on them you get like 500-1500 channels and hook up an antenna for local channels. Vizio has same thing. Pluto tv, Tubi TV apps among others that are free and ad supported.
The Fox222 is required if you have phone service with Frontier, The Nokia ONT's don't have a phone port.
At both my Mom's and Dad's places the phone port is on the router - My Dad ended up with the Nokia.
I’m surprised you didn’t choose a different VOIP service.
Many cheaper or free option for Voip.
- Google Voice (free)
- Ooma Basic(free) Ooma Premier ($9.99/mo)
Or move it to a Cell Phone.
If she's interested in lifetime and those kinds of channels I would recommend doing a combination of an antenna and FrndlyTV. I can also say Comcast and Windstream have come in in my area and now my cable operator is removing data caps and they also decreased pricing. I love competition!
Came here to recommend frndly TV, though I have admittedly never tried it. 7 bucks does give a decent amount of channels, Lifetime and History included.
500 Mbps as basic plan, Very good business model 😂😂😂😂
I’m surprised that frontier communications still has copper telephone service as phone companies are no longer required to have copper telephone lines. I know AT&T has completely discontinued their service in Southern California and gone strictly fiber-optic. I think that copper telephone service should still be mandated and I think you should be able to have the option of keeping your copper telephone line even if you have fiber optic service, because the copper telephone lines are more reliable than fiber optic for telephone services, especially in the event of an emergency.
1 gig Att here 85 a month including max service has been flawless here for almost 6 years
Man I sure with Frontier or some other internet would come in my area all we have available is Comcast .Ives been getting robbed .
Frndly TV offers Lifetime and other networks she likely enjoys for $7/month like MeTV, the other Lifetime channels and Hallmark along with unlimited DVR and a 3-day cache of live TV, so that'll be the best bet for her.
Hi, MoCa works great, but what you can also do is add switches to the router. You can add as may switches as needed for the other rooms as long as you have Ethernet wires long enough to go from room to room.
Also, instead of YTTV, a combination of an antenna for OTA channels and either Philo or Frndly TV would work great in my opinion.
See if the channels your grandmother wants are on Philo tv. They have lifetime and most all the lifestyle channels. Just no live news or sports. So an antenna plus philo might work out.
who uses 3 phone lines on a home?
most fiber optic modems i saw can only offer two lines, so they will need another fiber optic modem for that or reinstal one of the copper lines
Business phone and fax.
@@MrModaman if it was the year 2000, but it is 2023
Lon, I have the same service in Glastonbury and pay $62/mo with taxes. Mom should be paying a lot less.
Hulu live would have her History and Lifetime channels. No AMC channel, l believe most moms would not miss the gore of that channel. 500 up and down seems like over kill. That price seems too for a new subscriber, especially with competition in the area.
what a steal.
I am only paying under $80.00 from xfinity for internet, and modem rental.
Without TV & phone she'd be paying $49 for a better connection with no modem rental fee.
I'll just go to RUclips TV at least there a standalone company I wouldn't go through Comcast Xfinity to go with youtube TV. That is why I trust RUclips TV because at least I could get better service and pay $100 less a month than $186.20 a month bundle that is way too expensive and it's basically eats up your bank account every month!
She could ditch RUclipsTV and get Philio ($25/month) and an OTA antenna. People hate on Philo, but it has ~70 channels (including Lifetime and History lol). For another $8/month you could setup Channels DVR for her that would bring OTA and Philo channels into a easy to use guide with DVR functionally.
I've never heard any hate on Philo. We have it and we love it. We added an air tv with a hdd to have a 2-tuner ota dvr.
Drop the phone and move to something like callcentric. It's like $4/month.
Being an cord cuter is 1 of the resaons way I what my land lord to let me get rid of COX. The 5G Filter that AntennaMan showed I will get ASAP. Since the laocl news is only thing I can't get on an Disney + buddle with MAX makes the laocl news the only resaon for me to have an antenna.
Good luck with Frontier. I just ditched them a few months ago because they kept raising prices, wouldn't let me change my service plan to eliminate and old 'landline' phone (some BS about a government subsidy to maintain landlines for emergencies), or reduce the basic cable charge/completely eliminate cable tv. I switched over to Spectrum and got internet (300 mps) and cell phone service at $49/mo for two years, and I'm using an antenna on the roof with a SMART tv to stream programming. No complaints.
Holly crap the internet service (and mobile) are expensive at the states!
Yup I pay 90 dollars a month for a gig
@@kamildouglas each time that I see an ISP review or Stetson Dodger channel I have the same reaction: "holly shit". I understand that I should not simply use the current exchange rate and where I live the purchase power is lower, but my head 'do the napkins math's . In Brazil I'm paying around $33 for simetrical gig with dedicated IPv4, and around $14 for unlimited talk, text and data. Other interesting difference that I use to notice is that in States usually hotspot data is separate from the main mobile data plan, here is one unique "pool" of data (for those that not use unlimited) that the user can do whatever he wants.
Oh well, always interesting to learn, and thanks for the reply!
cost of life there is very different, all is relative to where you live and minimum wage
@@arch1107 "cost of life" that's the expression that I was trying to remember. Yes I know, direct exchange convertion only is not a good criteria, Again my point was only how the prices in States look expensive (and how the usage of hotspot data is limited). Thanks for your reply!
Never assume anything when dealing with the phone company.
Could supplement youtubetv’s lack of lifetime with a frndly subscription and still come in less than comcast.
eh. i see nothing much has changed in the good ole us of a since we moved. why is internet so expensive in the us? i mean, ok, it is a huge country so i guess infrastructure costs a bit, and by a bit i mean a lot, more than here in eu. here in sui for 90$ we get 10gig fiber. sure, in the metropolitan area and not in the boonies, but still. on the other hand, 80$ for 500mbit fiber is not too shabby compared to 80$ for 250mbit copper we paid to spectrum back in nc a year or two ago (im sure they bumped it up at least a bit since). in conclusion, 10gbit sounds woohoo, but we are never ever going to utilize it, i barely break 1gbit with downloads on a 2.5gbit nic connected via lan cable to the 10gbit port on our router. maybe gen5 nvme in raid 0 lol, but then again 10gbit controllers do tend to get a bit toasty. oh, well. forst world problems. cheers. btw, had comcast as well when we were living in mn, and dear god i was happy when we moved. do they still cap data? jesus. but, that being said, on account of monopoly… yes, comcast was in mn, and then spectrum was in nc, both monopoly. sad. thank you for reading my blog.
Don't Forget Libraries!!!! Check your local libraries, and see if they loan out free internet mobile "hot spots". I can take out a hot spot for 1 week at a time (sometimes can call and renew). Can link multiple devices. It's a great option if you are in between internet providers, or your home internet is down, or traveling etc. FREE internet!!!
Wait a min. Why did they cut all the copper at your Father's? They don't own those wires...I would be ticked if they cut my cables.
the cables belong to the company that installed them on almost all countries, they recover the cost of the copper and the installation on the first year of service
if you leave those cables pluggedd to the home, someone might try to use those and discover they dont work and cause support calls for something that doesnt exist anymore
it is done to simplify the setup, the installation and remove the confusion that often happens when families change services
you must not think in terms of property and rights, specially on external networks and more important, if you do not have any service in there
It's not cord-cutting if you're simply replacing one cord for another.
I’m paying $59.99 with cox 300 that’s with all taxes.
Comcast is overpriced and provides poor customer service. I ditched them over 6 years ago. Now, I have great fiber Internet service from Verizon in Boston for only $30/ mo. I’ve used RUclips TV for about 3 years at two homes and like it. Over the air is the lowest cost if you don’t need certain cable-only channels. For example, you can’t get FOX-NEWS programming over the air or streaming.
Stateside ISPs are horrible. Nowhere else in the world do we have these problems. I am not a big fan of government regulations on individuals but big businesses like Comcast or Verizon I have no issues. If you are going to run fiber, on a ROW, in my yard to your stupid little tincan cell tower you should be required to let me purchase fiber service on it. If your Giant fiber cable is going to be so heavy that it pulls the power pole into a tree, causing a power outage, you should be required to let me connect fiber to it.
Why are these serviçes so expensive in the US?? I have a similar fiber service your mom has, internet 500 Mbps, phone line with unlimited calling and free international calling from 9 p.m to 9 a.m and TV with tv box with over 100 channels, and i pay total with tax $35 per month, 32,99 in Euros. even with a cell plan, my motnlhy bill doesnt even come clos to 82 dollars, even if i added youtube tv. You guys are "being taken to the cleaners". ;-)
I’m so tired of hearing boomers say “cut the cord” 😂 - and you didn’t cut anything, you replaced one cord for another.
Freevee, Pluto, etc. are fine but I can’t stand the commercials!
Damn mine costs me £40 a month for 900 up and down.
Jesus Christ, USA is awful, our bill here in Bulgaria for TV and internet is 17$ per month. Literally 10 times less than yours.
Just wait until you find out that people are paying ~$900 a month for health insurance for an individual. Over $2000 a month for a family. I don't know how people make ends meet. It's ridiculous.